Getting there: round about and interesting people: My next trip to Mexico started in January of 2005. The trip began in Florida. I had been vacationing with my family and with my sister's family. My sister and her young son were going to take the train back to their home near Philadelphia, and I traveled with them as far as Philadelphia. At that point, they were picked up by her husband while I got on another train bound for Chicago. I sat next to someone returning from New York who was apartment searching. She was very nice and we discovered many common interests, like computers, outdoor activities, and at least some interest in trains. I also spoke with someone else who was from India and believed that God is in everything and everything is a part of God. He also believed that all religions point to this, including Christianity, so since in his belief, that made me OK, I had no trouble listening to him. I invited him to check out my web page and discuss anything he found there. For the overnight ride, the train was not too crowded and the girl sitting next to me found her own pair of seats, and I was able to stretch out with my pair of seats.
Sunday, January 16, I changed trains in Chicago to the Texas Eagle. After another overnight ride, I prepared to make an exchange of luggage in Dallas as I had done on my first trip. Marj and Ray Dubert were on the platform with a packed bag for me to take to Mexico. I handed off my roller bag full of items I won't need till I return to Dallas, then reboarded the train. The car attendant asked if I was boarding here and I said I was already on the train and just exchanging luggage. She may have thought that was rather strange but she didn't ask any other questions. We departed Dallas and arrived in Ft. Worth on time. The east/northbound Texas Eagle was in the station, and it departed on time a few minutes after we arrived. We were there for about 45 minutes, then departed on time. We rolled along for about 2 tenths of a mile then stopped for probably 20 minutes. Several minutes into the stop, a freight train came across the diamonds we had to cross, which blocked our path. Now that wasn't really fair, we had gotten there first, we were on time, and the diamonds weren't blocked when we got there! None-the-less, when the freight cleared, we continued, and after our last stop before San Antonio, it was clear that we would arrive there well ahead of schedule. That turned out to be the case even though the last few miles we crept along at about 10 mph as we went through freight yards and crossed many streets. After arriving, I started asking around to find out where to meet the bus to McAllen and was told it would come right to the station. But it wasn't scheduled till 1:55am! So I had a long wait. Fortunately, the station remained open and there were other passengers waiting to transfer to the already much delayed Sunset Limited. One of the passengers was quite entertaining. Another passenger who was there I had overheard on the train say he was a professional skater. I asked if there was a grocery store nearby, but there wasn't anything close enough to walk to that was open at that hour. A few minutes later, one of the Amtrak Conductors offered to take me to a grocery store. I accepted and off we went. We had a good conversation, he got me to the store, and got me back to the station. I asked what I could do for him, but he didn't want anything. Back at the station, I gave a banana to the man who was entertaining. He really appreciated it since he said he had been eating junk food for a while and needed something a little more healthy.
Tuesday, January 18, the bus to McAllen arrived a few minutes late, but the driver was friendly and we were on our way. I was the only one getting on, but there were a lot of people already on the bus. Fortunately, I found two seats empty, so I settled there. I tried to sleep but the seats were rather uncomfortable. We made several stops on the way to McAllen, including one stop for a grocery store where I purchased a bottle of water. Back on the bus, I finally did sleep a little, and only became aware of things again when I noticed the familiar rolling gate at the bus lot for the McAllen bus station. It was about 6:30am. In the station I was able to get good information for busses into Mexico. I waited till a more reasonable time to try calling Kingsway, the Bible school I had stayed at on my last trip. When I did call, I got right through and they knew who I was, and said they would find someone to come get me. When the person arrived, they asked if I was Paul, and I said no. As they walked away, I thought they looked vaguely familiar. After he had gone through the bus station and come back out, I tried to ask if they were from Kingsway, but he must not have heard me. He came out a door a little farther away from me. He then must have driven around the block because he came back a couple minutes later and asked if I was Bill! He had used his cell phone to call the office and realized he had the wrong name. It turned out he was the same guy who had picked me up last time. At Kingsway, they started to charge me $25 until someone suggested putting me in the dorm. When they did that, they only charged me $11! I asked everyone and anyone about how to get the tourist card/visa and nobody was certain but they all seemed to think I could do this right at the border crossing into Reynosa. I stayed for the morning meal which was at 10-10:30, and asked people there, and they still said the same things. So I then walked to the bus station and bought the ticket for the Reynosa bus. When I got to the border crossing, the guards didn't understand me very well, so I got back on the bus and went to the Reynosa bus station. That 24 hour a day office at the bus station was _still_ closed, and anyone who seemed to know anything told me to go back to the border. A map of Reynosa costs 45 pesos, so I passed on that. My GPS said the border was about half a mile away, and after standing outside the bus station a minute or two, I decided it was safe enough to attempt to walk back to the border crossing. The streets were pretty busy with traffic, so I felt safe walking back. When I reached the zocalo (or center city park), I saw a Banamex, a Mexican bank, that I don't remember being there before. I then went into the Mexican side border crossing building and found the right office almost right away. They asked what I needed and they produced the right papers right away. After filling them out, they stamped it and I was on my way. I went to the bank and got in line. There were two tellers working, and there were about 7 or 8 people ahead of me in line. The line didn't move at all for the first 10 minutes or so. Finally, one person got done, and the line seemed to move quicker after that but was still slow. When I paid for the papers, I found I was 10 pesos short. They let me pay with US $'s, but charged me $3! I had left most of my pesos at Kingsway and for some reason didn't plan on having things turn out this way. Then as I headed back to the US, I had to pay 30 cents for the bridge crossing. I could have walked back to the bus station and used the bus to avoid this charge probably. I got through customs really quick, as there was no line, and even for car traffic, the line was short. There were two busses waiting to go back to McAllen, and I was directed onto the Hidalgo bus. I was the only gringo passenger on the bus. In fact, I was the only passenger on the bus! The bus driver seemed surprised I was the only one. Everyone else had gotten on the other bus. This bus took a different and slightly faster route back to McAllen than the bus I had taken to get to Reynosa. When I arrived back, I went to the desk to find out about busses to Tampico, and there was one leaving at noon, among several other busses that went all day at one or two hour intervals. I called David to report the arrival time, then purchased my ticket. That took a long time as the person there had never done this before and wasn't sure they even did sell tickets for bus lines in Mexico. But I eventually had my ticket. Payment is only in cash. I then walked back to Kingsway. It sprinkled a little but that didn't bother me. Back at Kingsway, I had a note that Cheryl had called, so I tried to call her back only to get her machine again. I then called mom and dad in Florida, but nobody answered. Next I called my parents house in NJ and left a message there. I then got to doing some computer work, and it wasn't long before I felt sleepy. So I tried to sleep on the floor. That worked for a little while, then I decided to get on the bed, and that worked better. When I woke up, it was around 8pm. I went back to doing the computer work, then took a shower, ate some food, cleaned up my stuff and got ready for bed for real. It took a bit longer to get to sleep, but I slept well. Wednesday, January 19th, I woke up just a few minutes before my alarm went off, so I got up and went to the Kingsway breakfast. I connected with the driver guy again and arranged to go to the McAllen bus station at 9am. From there I took the bus to Reynosa. Crossing the border was easy, I got the green light, so they didn't inspect my bags. A guy helped bring my bags through customs, though, and he asked for a tip, so I gave him a quarter. At the bus station, I had a long wait, so I decided to try to call mom and dad. I got through to dad this time and reported everything OK. He was happy to hear from me, though mom was out on the beach. I then sat for a while longer, and one of the people behind the bus ticket booths called me over and wanted to be sure I knew what I was doing. Then asked if I wanted to fill out a survey. It was in Spanish, so I declined. I then headed for the bus, and was sure I was going to be searched, but once again I got the green light, so I walked through. I found the bus lane easy enough, the bus company name and "Tampico" were on a sigh at the right spot. After a short time a bus showed up in the spot next to the sign, but the destination scroll thing on the bus didn't say Tampico. Then another bus showed up in the lane under the sign but the destination scroll thing said Reynosa. Then a guy changed it to say Tampico. I moved my stuff closer to the bus. Then another bus arrived in another lane and bumped into its sign. After putting my stuff under the bus, I tried to board the bus, but the guy in charge saw my ticket and shook his head. He then indicated to follow him, and he took me to a booth where they spent a few minutes reissuing my ticket. Now my ticket looked like everyone else's ticket, and I was able to get on the bus. I had a window seat with nobody next to me, though the bus was probably a bit more than half full. we wound through the city streets to get out of town and made a few stops at places that had Transpais signs (the name of the bus company). We then started rolling almost directly south on a road that was dead straight for almost an hour. At one point we slowed down to go through an inspection place, but we didn't have to get off the bus. There were other inspection places, but most of them weren't staffed. The road got curvy further south and we went through a few mountainous areas, though not big mountains, and they were spread out with wide flat areas in between. Three movies were shown during the trip, two of which were in Spanish but the third was English with Spanish subtitles. None of the movies was particularly good. We arrived in the city of Tampico at about 6:30, which was close to schedule, but we didn't get to the bus station until closer to 7pm. We made one or two stops coming into town, and after a while I began to think maybe I was supposed to have gotten off there, but we eventually came to a bus station with many other bus companies, and it was obvious this was the last stop. After getting my bags, I walked through the big revolving door and found David, Nathan, and one of the Mexicans waiting for me.
A party?: We then headed to the house where I have been staying, where there were many others from the youth group. They were having some sort of party, with balloons all over the floor. We played a few games, mostly organized chaos, but it was fun. They had cake and chips and soda as well.
The House: The house is a standard fare Mexican style concrete wall block house with almost no furniture, except for a bed and a chair. There is one big room, two bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom. And a bunch of balloons in the main room that are doing a pretty good job of staying there after several days, and slowly deflating. The Mexicans have learned the secret to the answer of the age old question of whether to leave the toilet seat up or down. They don't have a toilet seat! At least my toilet doesn't have a seat, nor did the Caldwell's toilet in Morelia.
The Bus Commute to the Office (despacho): Thursday, January 20, my host family who lives in the house next door and owns the house I am in fixed eggs for my breakfast. Then Luis, their son who is marrying the pastor's daughter in June, led me to the bus station and rode with me to the office. We had to walk a block or two from their house to get the bus. Several different bus routes served the bus stop we waited at, and Luis told me to look for the bus that says "Germinal." I rode the bus to the office every day since it is a bit too far to walk, and quite a bit farther than from my house to the church in Morelia. The bus follows two straight roads, making a turn a little more than half way between where I get on and off, and the second road has a rail line in the middle that is used by several trains a day. I hear the horns fairly regularly but have yet to see a train.
The Germinal bus in Tampico:
First Day of work at the despacho (Office) The Office, referred to a despacho, because it is a certain kind of office though it has nothing to do with dispatching. I think it is an accountants' office, or maybe a tax processing office, but either way, they are letting RYCCA use parts of the office for our work and we will eventually have our own room. They have DSL high speed internet, so we spent some time trying to get my computer to work with it. This took quite a bit of effort but we finally got it when I connected my computer through Internet Explorer to the DSL modem. I don't think we got this to work until Friday. In the meantime, we tried to reformat the hard drives on several computers. We were successful with some of them, then spent about 6 hours getting Windows 95 installed on the oldest of the computers. (We were doing other things during this time, but that's how long it took.) The most modern of the computers had a partitioned disk drive with the largest partition formatted in NTFS format which was almost impossible to deal with. We didn't know this right away and spent a long time trying to figure out why we couldn't reformat the entire drive. The other computers were a pain because they didn't have keyboards or mice. We had to keep swapping keyboards and mice with one of the other computers. I also looked up information on David's TurboCad program.
More upgrading, downgrading, and giving up: Friday, January 21, after pancakes for breakfast, I went to the office where we reformatted the Windows 95 computer so we could try to put Windows 3.1 on it because it ran so terribly slow with Windows 95. But we only got as far as installing basic DOS system startup files. The XMS Memory manager was too far out of date and therefore the Windows Installer couldn't install a more recent one. We also finally gave up trying to reformat the NTFS drive and installed Windows XP instead. Finishing up all the installations continued into the next day.
Food is plentiful but the door is locked: Food is plentiful, and David took me to the HEB market where I bought some extras. The HEB is the same HEB food markets that are common in Texas. When I got home, I couldn't unlock the door to my house, so I went next door and told my host family. They tried for about half an hour and also couldn't get it to open. When we gave up, they made a bed for me to sleep in at their house. Since it was still relatively early, I showed them pictures from my computer.
Let's Talk About The Weather: Saturday, January 22, I awoke to howling winds. The daytime temperatures have not varied much, maybe as high as 80 but no lower than the upper 60's or 70. At night it can get a bit chilly, but no more than in July in Upstate NY.
A trip downtown, beware of the alligators: Later in the afternoon. Luis picked me up and we went to a nearby house for some soup. We then went on a tour through the city to one of the lagoons. There was a very nice park along the edge of the water, with playgrounds, picnic tables and grassy areas. And then there were signs with pictures of alligators on them and the word "Precaucion" written across the top. And then there were alligators. But the alligators were in the water or at the water's edge, and looked well fed, or at least not actively seeking food. And the people didn't mind being that close. One alligator was on a boat dock with its tail hanging in the water and its mouth slightly open. There were people in the boat docked right next to the 'gator. I would have gotten a picture but I discovered that my camera lens wouldn't open at the start of this little excursion. I made many attempts to open the lens, but it wouldn't open. Without the lens open, all I got was a "Lens Error" message on the screen.
Youth Group: We then went to David's house where the rest of the youth group showed up and Nathan led a Bible study, of sorts. He gave a summary of the whole bible then a summary of Judges through the first 3 kings of Israel. He did a rather good job. Of course, it was mostly in Spanish, so I had to guess what he was talking about. After the meeting, we had snacks, then I came home with Luis.
Church: Sunday, January 23, I went to church with Luis. We went early since he was on the worship team and they needed to practice. That gave me time to "talk" with others and study some Spanish. I don't "talk" much since I don't know the language very well, but I am talking more at different times with different people, especially when they know a little bit of English. The service went from 10am till after noon. The songs were not familiar but were similar in style to churches I have attended in the USA, with drums and keyboard. Nathan translated the sermon for me. It was about King David's mighty men.
Sunday afternoon: After the service, I went with several others to David's house, where we basically hung out all day, played games, did some bible study, and other mostly fun things. Some of this was for the youth group which included even some older young people as long as they weren't married. This may have been when we played the name game, where each person had to say the name of all the people who had already given their name, along with something they liked. I was somewhere in the middle of the group, and was excused from having to say all the names, but I had been listening carefully, and was able to say most if not all of them, including what they liked. Late in the day, I showed the two youngest Caldwell kids how to play Clock Solitaire. Rosie enjoyed that. Then I showed them how to play another solitaire game where the cards are laid out in piles of 3 and a king is put on the bottom of the pile. I actually remembered how to do it correctly, and the two kids picked up on how to play almost instantly and we solved two games! They seemed to really enjoy it and got a digital camera picture of what the layout looked like.
Back to Work: Monday, January 24, I took the bus to the office. I wasn't sure what I should be doing, so I picked away at things for a while, seeing what the various computers could and couldn't do and recording their specifications. During the course of the day I also got the hub connected to the DSL modem and connected two of the office's computers plus two more cables, one which will be for RYCCA and the other isn't used yet. The office people seemed quite happy about this since they only had one cable until then. David e-mailed me the latest newsletter and told me to get it on the web, so I worked on that. I also researched Linspire, a Linux based operating system that David wants to move towards. I started to download the free demo but when I realized it would take 7 hours even on the high speed connection, I stopped the transfer. When I finally wound things down, it was about 10pm. I was going to take the bus home, but Luis showed up and brought me home. They offered me some food, so we ate together. Tuesday, January 25, I again took the bus to the office. After doing a few things I was kind of stuck for what to do since we really needed to have computers set up for me to do anything and we didn't have anything set up that I could really use yet. The Windows XP that I had successfully installed would expire in 28 days unless we called Microsoft to verify our eligibility, and that was out of the question. So I called David, and he gave me a few things to work on. I spent the day working on those things, primarily researching some things on the internet, including internet telephones and how to do some things in Star Office. David is working with a very enthusiastic pastor who is promoting David's ministry everywhere he can. The church is much smaller than Morelia but just as lively. I think late in the day, David showed up and we began working on more projects. During the week, we downloaded Linspire. I'm not sure how we did this any faster than the 7 hours it would have taken, but maybe we did. David wants to get away from Microsoft for a variety of reasons and Linspire looked like a good alternative. Unfortunately, it only ran on the more advanced machines that we had, including a laptop and two desktop machines. But we had several other desktop machines that it wouldn't run on, and it was those machines that David really wanted them to run on. We also set up and by Saturday was successfully using one computer to record sound from old Phonograph records so they could be recorded onto CD's to take less space as well as have them readily available for use at RYCCA camps. I was involved in helping this get set up, but Nathan is going to do the actual recording. I worked on the web page quite a bit, and will continue to do so. David has established a USA based international organization to provide an umbrella for RYCCA and other camps yet to be established, and wants the current RYCCA web page to move to the international organization's web site. The RYCCA web site will become a Spanish site for use by the RYCCA camps.
Good food: Food seems to be plentiful, and though I have my own food, I am still offered food at meal times anyway. This food was very Mexican in style and I always enjoyed it, though some things I liked better than others. Supermarkets like in the USA are more readily available than in Morelia and not so much street market kind of stuff. Oil from the Golf of Mexico makes this town a little more wealthy than other places, but things are more expensive.
A Birthday Party: Thursday, January 27 was similar again, except in the evening when I went to the pastor's house to join him and others including the older Caldwell children for a birthday party. It was his 50th. Another time before the party when I was visiting with the pastor, I showed him some pictures and videos on my computer. One of the first things I showed him was the Chinese video of the guy catching a telephone pole and getting flattened to the ground. And that was the last thing I showed him since he was laughing so hard! So on the party night, I showed everyone this video, since he insisted on it. Pretty much everyone else thought it was hilarious as well.
A trip to the beach: Saturday, January 29, after working in the office for a while, David arrived. He had the two youngest kids with him and wanted to take me to the beach. So we went to the beach. The two kids made a sand castle, one that had actually been there since the last time they were there. The golf doesn't present much of a tide, though apparently it does some. I walked up and down the beach looking for shells. I found many shells like the common ones in Florida, but not much else. I did find a nice scallop though. David and I stood in the waves and chatted for a while about the land that he wants to buy. It's on an island that is like a barrier island in the Golf. The northern tip of the island starts a little distance south of Tampico. Currently, there is a bridge from the southern tip of the island and a road that goes to just about where the land David wants to buy. The land is a cross-section of the island, about 300 acres I think, yet only about 400 meters wide! It does, however, include water edge on both sides. The price, $150,000! This island reminds me of the barrier islands off North Carolina, and when Mexicans tap into the American tourist market, this has the potential to become a hot spot. We then drove south along the beach to the inlet where the ships can come into port at Tampico. There was a long rocky jetty with a road on it, so we drove most of the way out to the end of the jetty. Then back where we went to David's house for the youth group.
Our responsibility and God's responsibility: Sunday, January 30, at church, Nathan translated the sermon for me which gave both him and I practice on our Spanish. After the service, we all went to David's house where we had (another) party for the pastor since he was 50 years old. There were two other birthdays as well, so that was all part of the same thing. We played games, then I showed my computer videos while everyone except me ate cake. They then had a pinyata, with a lot of confetti in it, all in little pieces. The kids picked it up and threw it everywhere. I found a piece in my hair the next day. David gave me a ride home. Then David and had a good chat about where RYCCA and Camps International is going. The conversation continued a good conversation both David and Karen shared with me earlier about their experience over the years as missionaries and the struggles and joys that go with the work. One of the things said was, just when you think you can't handle any more, God shows you what you can REALLY handle. And then He helps you through that and you come out all the more stronger. We aren't doing all this ministry stuff because God needs us to but because God wants us to grow by doing it. The success or failure of what we do is God's responsibility. That we obey God in doing what he tells us to do is our responsibility.
A trip downtown: Monday, January 31, David picked me up at my place really early, about 7am, and we went downtown. And I thought I was already in Tampico. Well this was the old city, the land of 1 lane streets. Years ago, when my mom visited Athens, Greece, she told a story of big tourist busses getting stuck on streets that kept getting narrower and narrower. It was amazing to see a mostly full size bus make a right turn on one of these streets. The bus was able to do it, missing parked cars by inches. Rodolpho, who is involved in the church, lives in this area and has a restaurant where he serves breakfast. It is a hole in the wall place with a folding table and a portable stove, bigger than a camping stove, complete with a bread warming shelf underneath the egg frying surface. He served us eggs on football shaped loaves of bread, then an oatmeal drink with cinnamon sticks in it. It was sweet, probably too sweet for me but I drank it anyway and it was quite good. Rodolpho then took us for a walk around town. David was looking for several things, something for leatherworking in particular. We walked through the fruit section where it seemed everyone and their brother had a room full of oranges. And if they didn't have oranges, they had corn, and if they didn't have corn, they had tomatoes. A few people had some other things, but always in large quantities. There was so much fruit that people were going through baskets of fruit and throwing the bad ones in the street. There weren't enough bad fruits to make the street messy though. We then walked through other parts of town where there were many markets set up. We walked through a section of town which had been made to look like a piece of New Orleans. I wished my camera was working and with me. We walked through a food court area, then crossed a road and were at the entrance to a port. A foot bridge went up and over railroad tracks. We went up there and got a good view of the port, the tracks, and the Tampico passenger train station, unused, and looking neglected. A passenger train car was parked in the station. Rodolpho said when the trains used to run, they only ran 3 days a week. The port wasn't too active, though there were things going on. A truck went by with an enormous crane, the top of which I saw over another building, long before I saw the truck. There were several tracks with strings of freight cars parked on them, just like what I would see in the USA. A gondola was parked directly under the foot bridge, and a gondola like truck drove by while we were there. David noted the difference in size, which was considerable. The gondola was empty except for a little bit of trash. We then continued walking through the city for a while. It was quite a bustling place, with lots of people on the street, though not as crowded as New York often is. David found some of the things he wanted and got leads on other things. We visited a place that takes new rolls of newspaper (unprinted) and turns them into sheets that are used to wrap tortillas. Finally, we headed back and got to David's house at Noon. David and Karen both took me to the office.
A late night dinner: I stayed in the office and worked on revamping the Camps International web page. In the evening, Luis came and picked me up. He was pretty late because his car was having trouble. At home, at about 11pm, most of the family was wide awake and sitting down to dinner! This was not the only time we have had more than one late night meal like this.
Good conversations lead to more work: Tuesday, After breakfast of probably pancakes or eggs, I went to the office on the regular Germinal bus. Luis wanted me to come back to his place for lunch, so that meant a ride home on the bus which I've only done once before. It worked out fine. I spent the morning continuing to work on the Camps International site. After lunch, which was in the middle of the afternoon, I stayed around the house because I didn't want to keep going back and forth to the office, plus I really didn't need to go back to the office. I instead went with Luis to the church when it was time for him to go for music practice and bible study. I met up with David there, and after the kids got started we headed to the office, having another good conversation about the direction of the organization on the way. That gave me a bunch of new things to work on, particularly mailing lists, a few more things with the CI (Camps International) web site, and so on. I worked mostly on odds and ends after doing one bigger project, which I think was getting an HTML based form to successfully send e-mail via our web site. I did the odds and ends while I was also spending time online and got into a couple good discussions there. Luis came and got me and again we had a late night dinner at his house, then chatted till almost 1am!
Cold even in Tampico: Wednesday, February 2, it was chilly so I was slow getting out of bed. It was like a particularly cold morning in Upstate NY in June. At one point Karen explained to me that it can get very cold in Tampico occasionally, and usually resulsts in the deaths of a few homeless.
Computers need drivers or they won't run: After breakfast and the usual bus ride to the office, I worked more on the CI site, then worked on the mailing lists. I got them set up but couldn't get them to do anything when I tried sending an e-mail to the list. So I gave up on that and e-mailed David a report of what I had done. I then worked on other odds and ends for the Camps International site. Somewhere along the line, I tried to install Windows 95 back onto one of the oldest computers that is barely capable of running Windows 95, after taking 6 hours to install. It is the same computer that failed to run Windows 3.1 since there was a XMS driver file that it needed that could only be obtained from the manufacturer. Of course, when the manufacturer is defunct or the computer is put together by amateurs, you're out of luck. So when I went to install Windows 95, it wouldn't recognize the CD ROM drive. I went through my PC troubleshooting manual and determined that the CD ROM drive needed a driver which we also didn't have, and like with the XMS driver don't know where to get the driver or what driver we need! So now we have a computer that is running MS DOS and won't do anything else! Also during this process I discovered that one of our monitors (fortunately the oldest) is functioning like an EKG, which is basically useless when it comes to trying to use it for a computer.
Animal parts for lunch: Thursday, February 3, I worked in the office in the morning on various things, and more my own things since I had done pretty much everything David had given me to do, at least up till that point. There were more projects but I couldn't get started on them without some input from David. I went back to Luis' house for lunch. For lunch, I was served a bowl of soup which contained some unusual things. One of them looked like the throat of some animal, and I was told the other things in the soup were pieces of the stomach of whatever animal it was. It was soft and kind of tasty to eat. I told them in America, we eat only the heart, liver, kidneys, and maybe the tongue, but I've never eaten these parts before!
Tampico Tampoco is a joke: One of Luis' relatives is probably 12 years old or so, and he had just come home from school. After lunch, we played soccer (Mexican football) with him in the street for a while. Then Luis took me with him to church where he would spend the evening with the others practicing and in bible study. David met me there and we went with one of his daughters to the office, where the daughter (I think Cherith) cleaned up the back area where we had a lot of David's stuff, and loaded up two of the computers that no longer need to be there. Meanwhile, David and I went through his e-mail on the server to try to remove all the old messages that he thought were being deleted but apparently weren't. He had almost 70 megabytes of e-mails and was running out of room on the server. This took several hours since we had to look at what we were deleting, and each page of information took several minutes to transfer to my laptop, even with our high speed connection. After David left, I worked on a few of my own projects as well as started to work on many of the things David had give me to start working on. Then Luis showed up and we went to his uncle's house which was up the road in the direction I haven't been yet, along the railorad tracks, probably 1 or 2 miles. We ate a little food while there. They talked a lot and I mostly didn't understand it, but when they talked about me, I could pick up a few words and begin to understand. I was at the stage where many jokes can be made about Spanish words I don't know and English words they don't know. Aparently Tampico tampoco is a joke. Tampoco means 'neither' but I'm not sure what the joke was.
A stolen radio: Friday, February 4, I ate breakfast as usual at Luis' house. Then as I was about to depart for the office, we discovered that Luis' car (an old style beetle VW) had been broken into and the radio stolen! The front driverside small triangle window had been smashed and there were the typical crystals of glass on the seat. I had left my bag of computer odds and ends (not the laptop, but the power cord, and various other cords for things) in the back seat, and that, very fortunately, was still there. There was no immediate obvious evidence that other cars on the street had been broken into.
A movie: I then headed for the office and began working on David's stuff. One thing I did was prepare the original RYCCA web site and the new one I built for archiving, after having moved the RYCCA site information that I created to the Camps International site for the next round. I also worked on a number of other things that David wanted me to work on. I had agreed with Luis to return to the house at around 5pm. Nobody was there, or at least it didn't appear as though anybody was there, so I went into my part of the house and did work on my computer. I also ate some food. Then at about 10pm, Luis asked me if I wanted to watch a movie with the family. I agreed and they had 3 movies on DVD, one of which was Cheaper by the Dozen! They set it up to have sound in English with Spanish subtitles. They seemed to enjoy the movie. Then back here and to bed.
Trip to Cabo Rojo: Saturday, February 5, I got up early and walked to the church. I needed to be there at 8am, and since I sensed I was a little behind schedule, I got on a bus and went the remaining probably half a mile to the church. I was there right at 8am, but nobody else was there for at least 10 or 15 minutes. David showed up first, then the pastor, and we then went to Cabo Rojo. It was the pastor, David, Keri, Juanito and Christovo (I think I got the last two right.) I had my GPS and marked off points as David requested. We started out by crossing the bridge from Tampico to the next state. The bridge is a modern design bridge with highway lanes. The highway lanes continued for a few miles beyond the bridge, then it was center line only paved road for a short distance, then very American style 2 lane road at American speeds. There was an inspection site but only for traffic headed toward Tampico. After about half an hour or so, we turned off the main road onto a dirt road that we followed for a long time but didn't go too far since we had to go much slower. Maybe 5 miles. We then came to a ferry which was little more than a floating platform with a motor boat that acted like a tug boat. The boat was ready for us when we got there, so we had minimal delay making the first water crossing. The crossing took no more than 10 minutes from shore to shore, and we were on our way again, once again on a dirt road for maybe 2 miles. We then came to a small fishing community. We waited there for a while until we had a fisherman and his boat who could take us to Cabo Rojo. At this point we had to leave the car behind. This body of water was much wider, perhaps 3 or 4 miles before we got to the community on Cabo Rojo. There is a small town there, and David says the people in the town are about 98% Christian. They have a church that is prominently placed just above the boat dock. When we arrived, we were warmly welcomed and were soon eating tamales. Then it was back to the boat where we were taken several miles south along the inside of the island, to the land David wanted to purchase. When we got there, we stepped off onto the shore and waited a while. We then got back on the boat and headed back north, stopping about half way to look at another piece of land. I used my GPS to get coordinates for points to show the southern and northern borders of the land. But we weren't able to tour either piece of land since we weren't able to connect with the right people. I'm not even sure they knew we were coming. But that is how things are done in Mexico. When we got back to the Christian community, we were treated with crab soup. A couple people also had one shrimp in their soup bowl. I looked in my bowl and said, "No tengo!" (Which means "I don't have it.") So the pastor, which had a shrimp, broke his in half and gave me the lower half. The upper half had the head still attached. Now, there may have only been one shrimp, but it was huge. It was the biggest shrimp I've ever seen. It would put New Jersey grocery store jumbo shrimp to shame. It filled the whole bottom of the soup bowl. I wish we had gotten a picture. But it wasn't all that tasty. After the soup, we got back in the boat and headed back to the inner island. Then back in pastor's SUV, and as we were driving across the island, a local transit bus was coming the other way. It was one of the smaller kind, not a full length bus. When we got to the ferry, it was half way across the lake and going away. So we had to wait about 20 minutes before it got back. In that time, the bus caught up to us and was ready to make the crossing also. The car and the bus both managed to fit on the platform, and the bus driver did an amazing job of pulling up next to the car just inches away. Back on the other side, the bus departed right away, but we stayed a while as David and pastor chatted with someone. Then the long journey on the dirt roads. Just before getting to the main road, we continued south on the dirt road to another potential piece of property for camp. David decided almost right away it wasn't going to be for camp. Or maybe he had already decided. We then headed back for Tampico, stopping at another property briefly. We went right to David's house, where youth group started soon after.
Verse Dictation: The main activity of youth group was to record on the computer various bible verses in Spanish, spoken one word at a time, with long enough pauses between each word for non Spanish people to think about the word before hearing the next one. There was also a lesson, done as usual by one of the kids, and from what little I could tell was pretty thorough as it lasted more than just a few minutes. We also helped David fold brochures to be mailed.
The taxi bus: I then came home with the Mexican youth, 2 girls and a guy. I had to take 2 busses, the first with everyone, and the second the guy went with me to make sure I got to the right place. Everything there worked out well. The second "bus" though, was just a regular car which was officially a bus! It was obviously so because the car was there when we first got to it, but after we got in the back seat, the driver waited 7 or 8 minutes for the official departure time before we started on our route. And it only cost 4 pesos a person.
Ruta 10 bus, the right one: Sunday, February 6, I got up and ate some breakfast, then walked to church. It is a mile to the church, and again I thought it wise to take a bus. So when I saw a bus with Ruta 10 and H. E. B. written on the front I ran to catch up figuring that would take me pretty close to the church, since the H. E. B. market is very close to the church, and I also knew Ruta 10 was on the bus signs all the way to the church. Well that bus took me right to where the bus I took on Saturday took me, which was right next to the church. So I got to the church in plenty of time.
Another party: Nathan again translated the sermon to me, this time about Jerico. In the afternoon, I went with Pastor and friends, and several of the youth in two cars to a church about an hour or so away from Tampico to the north. We stopped at a restaurant on the way. Then at the church in this little farming community, we had a time of bible study, then another party for pastor's 50th birthday. Among the fun things was a pinyata for the kids. And I got to hold the rope. The other end of the rope was tied to a tree while I stood on a sand pile and tried to swing the pinyata so as to make it a little tough for the kids to hit it. They seemed to enjoy it. After that, we played with the balloons for a while, then tried to fly several kites, with little success. Finally one of them worked, but the wind was dying down. Still, it got pretty high off the ground and was in the air for a good length of time. There was John Deer farm equipment parked nearby, and two large stacks of baled hay. Luis and I climbed up on top of one of them. Then we came back to Tampico, stopping at the Pastor's house for some dinner. I read from a Spanish bible the 23rd Psalm in an effort to learn more Spanish words. The others enjoyed helping me pronounce the words correctly.
Luis was going to take me to a Marti-Gras like party downtown, but since I had a cold I decided not to go.
Marathon computer work: Starting on Monday, February 7, I worked on the web page, combining information on the old RYCCA site to the new CI site. I added stuff that David wanted me to add to the site, and looked at a problem with the mailing list. I got pictures from Cabo Rojo trip online and researched Amtrak for my trip home. I researched details about Cabo Rojo, and other internet research that would be useful for various mostly technical aspects of running camp. There was still at least one computer that wouldn't start up, so I made another attempt at trying to get it to boot. By Thursday, David had purchased a copy of Linspire and I downloaded it, then burned a CD for it, and did some other things. I also had the digital camera (David's) with me so whenever I heard a train, I went out of the office to take a picture of it. David came into the office in the evening, and we worked on several things then packed up everything and headed for his house. When we got there, I began a marathon effort of trying to keep up with all of David's computer requests. This lasted until Saturday night almost non-stop, only for bathroom breaks and to eat. We: installed linspire and other software, tried to learn what we could and needed to about the new operating system to make it work for us, I showed them some of the little I remembered from College about Linux (Which Linspire is based on), getting internet, e-mail and printer drivers set up in Linspire, installing operating systems and software on the older computers, and in some cases trying to get certain things just to work. The work intensified to the point that I was delegating things to Nathan and maybe Caleb from time to time. At one point, I ran down the hall with a computer monitor in hand, announcing my movement so I wouldn't run into anyone. Karen did a masterful job of keeping everyone well fed, despite David taking some of her help away by using the kids for one of his projects. One of the major projects was backing up 18 gigabytes of data on David's primary computer onto the Linspire computer. David's computer couldn't burn CD's but it was supposed to be able to do so. Instead, we used my USB card to transfer the data. That kept Nathan going all day and all the next day upstairs and back copying data, but we at least got that done. One of the major achievements was getting a useful operating system onto a computer we thought was beyond hope, and reinstalling Windows 95 or 98 on a computer donated by Jill, someone I knew from upstate NY. This was another thing we thought was impossible. By the time all this was done, it was Saturday afternoon, but we were still going. At some point on Saturday, we focused not on the possible but on what was practical so that David would be most able to handle things after I was gone. That meant not trying anything new with the computers, even though ideally we would have liked to.
You got him into this!: Several times while I have been in Tampico, I have had really interesting conversations with both David and Karen about missionary life and related things, and at one point, Karen told me that she (who had missionary parents) had prayed for 10 years for David to get involved in Missions work! So at one point when it sounded like Karen was complaining about all the things David was wanting everyone to do, I almost said to Karen, "Just remember, you got him into this!" I think it would have been taken well, but things were moving too fast for me to bother with such trivial jokes! Another trip to Crocodile Lagoon, and a concert: Saturday evening, I went with several of the youth including Caleb and the two Caldwell girls to the crocodile lagoon. Luis had taken me here the day I discovered my camera was dead. It was a nice city park with playgrounds, grassy areas, pavilions, etc. And a lagoon with crocodiles. We took one car and the rest of us into a taxi. We walked around the lagoon, but didn't see any crocodiles. It was night so they were probably sleeping. We then crossed the lagoon on a bridge, walked across a muddy area, and went into what was a very nice modern theater building where a performance was going on. We were let in for free! It was college level students, and they were pretty good. It was a series of different performances, and at least one of them seemed very professional. They sung or played different songs for each performance. The theater itself was like I said very modern. That ended after we were there only about 20 minutes or so, maybe a bit longer, then we headed back. The bridge across the lagoon had wood planks for the walkway, and at one point, a wood plank was completely missing. Someone my size would fit through, but it was easy enough to step over. Another plank was only half missing. But with crocodiles below, this was unnerving! Instead of taking a taxi home, we all piled into one car. 3 in the front seat and I think 6 in the back! Back at David's house, I gathered my stuff, checked e-mail, then Luis took me home. It was about midnight when I got there, and I spent about 2 hours organizing my stuff and preparing for my trip home.
My Tampico Family and my departure: Sunday, February 13, I went next door to my last meal with my host family. As usual, we couldn't say much except joke about our poor understanding of the other's language. Still I managed to say, "Tu es me familia en Tampico." Luis and I took a taxi to the church, then I turned on my computer and when it started playing "Blow the Man Down" one of only 2 or 3 times I didn't catch it!), Caleb asked me to let it play! Then as more people gathered, I started showing the pictures from Saturday night. I had to cycle through them several times before everyone got to see what they wanted to see. During the singing time, there were 4 different people on the floor crying over something, including Karen. I hadn't seen this before. I myself felt a heavy burden of a mixture of joy and sadness... in part, respectively, because of what was going on and in part because of my departing. Then between the singing and sermon where there are usually announcements and the offering, I was called to go up front, and the pastor said a bunch of words about me then prayed for me. David told me later that what had been said was wrong: that I was translating the web page from English into Spanish! And David even said pastor was a little confused because he knew my spansh wasn't that good. I then said in Spanish, "God bless you" and repeated the "you are my family" phrase, also in Spanish, but managed to mix the two. Then Caleb translated for me so everyone could understand what I had said. Then everyone I had gotten to know even a little bit lined up and gave me a hug and wished me well. Then David and I went to the van and took me to the bus station. We stopped just down the street from the station and talked about last minute things and said a prayer. I also left David with most of my pesos to be given to Luis' family. It was about 500 pesos. David dropped me off at the curb and from there I was on my own.
Camp was held in the Tampico area at least once. I wasn't directly involved but my work helped in part to make it possible
On my way home: I had no trouble finding the Transpais bus desk and asking where my bus might be. When I walked through the security gate, the machine beeped, but the security guards waved me through. On the bus, there was a TV monitor overhead, and more space between me and the seat in front than on Amtrak long distance trains! For some reason, these seats were more widely spaced apart than any other seats on the bus; I had more space than anybody. On the way out of town, we stopped at a couple other Transpais only bus stops, and at one of them, a woman got on and sat next to me. I discovered pretty early on that she spoke English pretty well, so we were able to talk about various things. We headed northwest out of town for a while before heading north, and just before heading north, I saw the Cerro del Bernal, which is basically the same thing as Devil's Tower in America, and looks pretty close to the same thing. I hadn't seen it on the way down, or even when we came this way to the church the previous Sunday. Further along, I saw a yellow ball along the side of the road and wondered what it was. Then I saw a sign that said "Tropic of Cancer"! I hadn't realized I was below this line. I knew I was below the line in Morelia, but I didn't think I was that far south. One of the movies shown on the bus was Cheaper by the Dozen, marking the 3rd time I've seen the movie. Only this time they didn't switch the language to English with Spanish subtitles. They didn't even have English subtitles. But I still enjoyed watching the movie, and tried to pick up a few more spansh words as I listened to parts I was familiar with. The bus got to Reynosa in good time. The lady sitting next to me said she was also going to McAllen on the Valley Transit bus, but she didn't go into the station when I did to get a ticket, and I didn't see her after that.
Reynosa to McAllen: The bus to McAllen was just starting to pull away from its spot when I got to it and I waved, and he stopped. When I got on, there was nobody else on! This was a little surprising, reminiscent of my last time returning to the USA, complete with someone sitting next to me for much of the trip who spoke a little English and would be taking the connecting bus to El Paso but didn't show up, and I got to ride in an empty bus across the border. Only this time, the bus pulled into the last bus space at the end of the Reynosa station boarding area (maybe 40 feet from where I got on) and about 20 people got on! Maybe the official boarding area was there instead of where I got on! The woman who had sat next to me on the bus from Tampico wasn't among the 20 people either.
Crossing the border: There was a line waiting to cross the border. Behind me was a college age girl who was calling her parents and telling them she was in Mexico. They weren't believing her and she was trying to get a Mexican to say something in Spanish. It seemed as though the Mexican was her friend but I couldn't tell. When it came my turn to go through Customs, they asked me the usual questions, and when I told them one bag was full of letters he seemed a bit surprised. But he let me through without even opening my bags. Seemed like the good ole days where if you look American, and have the appropriate documentation, you can generally be trusted. Back on the bus, a guy behind me asked for water for his baby, and I had a whole bottle full, so I filled his little baby bottle. Then I dropped the cap to my bottle and it rolled on the floor a couple rows ahead! I looked for it until the bus driver asked me to sit down since it was dangerous to be out in the aisle while he was driving. When we got to McAllen, I waited till the bus emptied and I was able to find my cap.
Back in the USA: In the station, I walked a few blocks to a convenience store for some food, then back here and bought a subway sandwich. Then I called my parents and we chatted for about 45 minutes. Then I sat down with my computer and updated my journal while waiting for the next bus.
Who shot kennedy?: Monday, February 14, the bus arrived on time at 1:20am, the only bus in that time frame to arrive. There were probably 10 people, maybe a dozen, who got up from their seats and otherwise emerged from the woodwork to get on the bus. I was the only person going to the Amtrak station. I found a pair of seats to myself, which was good. I was told when I got on the bus to be sure to tell the driver I was going to the Amtrak station. I thought I had done that when I told it to the guy who took my ticket getting on the bus. Then an announcement was made that this was an express bus and wouldn't make any stops until San Antonio, but didn't say anything about going to Amtrak. That didn't help me to sleep any. As we neared San Antonio, I fell asleep for a while, then woke up when we got closer. At some point when we approached San Antonio, I heard something that sounded like the driver talking to his home base, and he mentioned something about a drop-off at Amtrak. That made me feel better. We went right to the Amtrak station, I got my bags and went inside. It was a little before 6 am. Nobody was at the station, but the lobby was open and there were lights on behind the desk. After a while, people did show up, both Amtrak employees, and passengers. One guy, typically there is one guy who is a little strange, came in and announced that an Amtrak train had hit a truck in Louisiana that morning and there were deaths. He later asked me where I was going, and when I said "Dallas," he said, "Oh, that's such a dangerous city. Kennedy was shot there! It wasn't Oswald that shot him, you know that, don't you?" He went on about Oswald for a few minutes. I took a walk down to the far end of the platform, tried to nap on the benches, and ate some food I had. Finally they let us board the train that had been sitting there since I had arrived. I think I had 2 seats to myself from the start, which was nice. I only counted about 17 people boarding the train. One person near me was only going as far as Austin. In Fort Worth, we departed a few minutes late, but got pinned in by a freight train blocking our exit. An announcement was made to this effect, saying that when the freight train clears, we can go. Well, the freight train wasn't moving either! Is this gridlock? It didn't take too long before the freight train to move, and we were on our way. We got to Dallas a few minutes behind schedule. I walked over to the DART rail platform, where a woman was handing out information about DART. I asked her numerous questions about riding DART and for maps, and she answered everything. I was quite impressed. This is serious marketing to get people to ride. I then called the number I was supposed to call for the people I was suppsed to meet in Garland, and got an answering machine. So I said I was on my way. I then waited a little while for a blue line train to Garland. When I arrived in Garland, I found the person I was looking for, and he recognized me after a few seconds. They must have gotten the message!
Priorities: One of the things David had sent me with was Nathan's college application. So to get that in the mail, we went right to the post office. The lobby was open all night but we needed a W2 form to add to the mailing. So we went to the house I would be staying at that night. After dinner, we got the W2 form ready and took the package to the post office. We then went over the other work I had to do, and after my hosts went to bed, I spent about 3 hours online getting e-mail and looking up information for David, among other things.
Work Continues: Tuesday, February 15, I got some information off one computer and installed Open Office on two computers. I got the envelope template set up and after realizing we didn't have the right font I made another trip over to another house to get that. It seems like I spent most of the day doing various things like this, but I also worked some on the forms for camp registration. We all had dinner together, then I spent some time showing them all my pictures of Mexico, which they really enjoyed since they hadn't seen anything! Wednesday, February 16, I finished up the last few things including installing a font and writing down a process so that envelopes could be printed. I then got a ride to the DART station and headed for home. This ends my second trip to Mexico.
Visit Camps International web site to learn more about doing Christian camps in different countries.